Tourists have long gathered at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington to pay homage to an elegant marble likeness of a man revered as one of the country’s greatest presidents. But turn on the television, and you’ll see representations of Lincoln that are much less recognizable. In a GEICO commercial, the 16th president tells his wife that her posterior looks plump; a stovepipe-hat wearing Lincoln explains insomnia in a sleeping pill ad; and in bookstores, “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” enjoys robust sales. The Lincoln we see today is often a far cry from the rail splitter of 1860.

Jackie Hogan, a sociology professor at Bradley University in Peoria, Ill., writes in her new book, “Lincoln, Inc.: Selling the Sixteenth President in Contemporary America,” that the Great Emancipator is also a great marketing tool.

“The packaging and selling of Abraham Lincoln is not a recent development,” she writes. “During Lincoln’s lifetime, he was actively ‘branded’ and marketed to the voting public, much as political candidates are branded today.”

“When Lincoln was running, they branded him,” Hogan told POLITICO, bringing up the 16th president’s “rail splitter” sobriquet. Of Lincoln’s presidential campaign, Hogan said, “There were all kinds of theatrics: pulling up a fence rail and parading around saying this fence rail was split by Abraham Lincoln. They created an image of him as an average Joe, and in many ways, he was not an average Joe. But he was very happy to ride that reputation into the White House.”

Just over 150 years after Lincoln was sworn in, Hogan said that vendors and corporations still capitalize on “unimpeachable Americanness” to sell Lincoln romance novels, Honest Abe bobbleheads and other fare.

And politicians continue to cash in on Lincoln’s brand, too. Dropping Honest Abe’s name in political settings can be powerful, Hogan said, as it’s “strongly associated with honesty, integrity and courage.” Republicans, she points out, happily label themselves the “party of Lincoln.”

But during the 2008 presidential race, “it was Democrats who most aggressively leveraged Lincoln’s image,” Hogan writes.

Then-Sen. Barack Obama made sure to point out on the campaign trail that he spent many years in the land of Lincoln, and that, like the 16th president, he was an Illinois lawyer who had cut his teeth in the Illinois Legislature and served one term in Washington. “The Obama campaign capitalized on such associations,” Hogan remarks, pointing out that Obama adorned “his speeches with recognizably Lincolnesque language” and regularly quoted Lincoln. He also spoke on a Cooper Union stage where Lincoln once stood and declared, “The last time an Illinois politician made a speech here, it was pretty good.”